The wait feels like forever, but at last Mortal Kombat‘s character add-on DLC series will begin next week. First up is Skarlet, and she will be closely followed by an additional three characters at unspecified future dates. Skarlet looks like a tough cookie, with some nasty stabbing moves, and some fine red boots. She will be coming to the Xbox Live Marketplace June 21 for an as of yet unspecified price, followed by Rain, Kenshi and a mystery character.

Rise of Nightmares is the upcoming Kinect title from Sega. Opinion is divided, however, as to whether any screaming it provokes is due to the content or the actual game design. The game is a member of the survival horror genre that is a cross between Resident Evil and the Saw/Hostel franchise of films. Zombie ballet dancers, puppets and various other creepy assailants will try to block your escape from some torture chamber. It’s due to be released this summer, and you can check out some of the gameplay in this video.

Just out on the web is a new teaser trailer for Frogwares’ upcoming adventure title, Testament of Sherlock Holmes. Running in at just under a minute long, this video gives us a good idea of the graphics and visual style of the game. Developer Frogwares has seriously upped the budget for this 360, PS3 and PC release, providing a big bump in graphical fidelity as you’ll see. We also get to see some of the game’s environments and various NPCs. It is also the first Sherlock game made specifically with console gamers in mind.

The Dungeon Siege III PC demo has been released, and you can download it now from Steam. According to the listing, the 1.5GB demo features both single-player and co-op gameplay modes. Two out of the four characters are available to play: Lucas the Guardian and Anjali the Archon. Reports from those who have managed to get their hands on it indicate that the third installment is quite different from its successors, and focuses more on co-op play and decisions, and less on loot gathering and managing NPCs. The full game arrives June 21.

Continuing on from the 2009 movie reboot, Star Trek: The Game will see Kirk and Spock blasting their way to save the galaxy. The story is being penned by God of War series writer, Marianne Krawczyk. The PS3 edition will come with Move support and an “authentic Phaser Move controller.” Prior to launch there will also be some Sony-exclusive DLC. The title should be warping its way to you during the summer of 2012 for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Ponder no more! Overkill’s Payday: The Heist is a game about armed robbery. A team-based first-person multiplayer shooter, the title launches digitally for the PC and PS3 late this summer. Its four player team-based gameplay has been likened to that seen in Left 4 Dead. The game features “dynamic scenarios,” which means it doesn’t behave the same way across multiple play throughs. When you and your team of four execute a plan, you’ll encounter different behaviors from civilians and the police sent in to stop you. Overkill revealed that the six scenarios will not just include bank robberies, but raids on an embassy, a drug lord’s panic room, and several other sites.

Microsoft pushed its motion control system in a big way at Monday’s press conference. Along with Kinect support for Mass Effect 3 and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, the company announced a host other games that enable us to fling ourselves around our living rooms.

Crytek’s codenamed project, Kingdoms, first revealed at last year’s E3, was unveiled as Ryse, a cinematic, Romanesque visceral action game designed for Kinect. Microsoft also announced that Peter Molyneux is finally integrating Fable and Kinect with Fable: Journeys. Set five years after the events of Fable III, the game will allow players to use Kinect to craft and control magic that “can’t be done with a standard controller.” Along with the previously announced Kinect-controlled Sesame Street game, Microsoft also revealed that it’s also allied itself with Disney. In Kinect Disneyland, players will be able to fully explore a digital recreation of the theme park.

Microsoft also announced that Kinect Fun Labs will be making its way to the Xbox 360. Accessible through Xbox Live, the new hub for all things Kinect will offer the very latest features for the device, including full body scanning for avatars and 3D drawing.

Sega and Gearbox have finally ended the wait for those patiently hoping for the next new Aliens game. Aliens: Colonial Marines will release sometime in the spring of 2012 for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Colonial Marines will continue the movie plot of James Cameron’s 1986 blockbuster Aliens, allowing players to join a squad of soldiers as they face the lethal alien menace. Gearbox (creators of Brothers in Arms and Borderlands) promises a co-op squad shooter that pits players against the Xenomorphs, perhaps the most feared enemy in science fiction.

Aliens are among us again! News has emerged of the XCOM reboot, the latest in the franchise, created by the brains behind Bioshock and Bioshock 2. Featuring a bold new origin story told from a first-person perspective, XCOM pits Special Agent William Carter and his veteran team against invaders threatening human extinction. Every enemy is an opportunity; players strike surgically against the alien menace, capture their technology, and by the science of desperation, turn their weapons against them. Armed with these lethal new tools of war, players command their squad on XCOM’s front line: Main Street, USA. “I’m pleased to announce today that we will be bringing this experience to an even broader audience when XCOM comes to the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in March 2012,” says Christoph Hartmann, publisher 2K’s president.

Age of Empires Online is ready to be herded out of beta and onto PCs worldwide on August 16. The game, which will initially launch with the Greek and Egyptian factions, will be available both at retail and online. The freemium title ($19.99 if purchased at retail) boasts more than 40 hours of free co-op and competitive gameplay. Expansions for other civilizations and different game modes will be made available via micro-transactions. Expect monthly premium content that ranges from $4.99 to $9.99 in the form of booster packs and items to outfit your capital city.

Crimson Alliance has been officially announced by its developer, Austin, Texas-based Certain Affinity. The title will be an action role-playing game (with a heavy emphasis on combat over character interaction), and will debut this summer.

“[Crimson Alliance] takes everything we’ve learned about high action from working on shooters like Halo and Call of Duty, and everything we love about the fantasy genre, but gets rid of all that tedious backpack rummaging, and boring dialog!” says a Certain Affinity statement.

The game will support four-person co-operative play via Xbox Live or locally, but it is unclear if it will be a strictly downloadable title like Certain Affinity’s last offering, Age of Booty.

Time flies! It will soon be Elder Scrolls: Oblivion‘s fifth birthday, and to celebrate ahead of the release of Skyrim, Bethesda is releasing an anniversary bundle. This will include the Oblivion Game of the Year version, which features all of the available DLC. It will also come in a steel case with a “making of” DVD, a map of Cyrodiil from the Collector’s Edition, and a $10 coupon towards The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The Oblivion Fifth Anniversary Edition currently appears on both Overstock and Amazon’s US shops for $30 with a release date of June 28. A European bundle has not yet been announced.

Could the next Alan Wake adventure end up on Xbox Live Arcade? XBLAFans has allegedly seen screenshots and reports that it will be called Alan Wake’s Night Springs. Night Springs is the name of the TV show in the world of Wake. Earlier this month, developer Remedy confirmed that a new Alan Wake release is on its way, but that it isn’t a retail sequel or downloadable content. Such a statement seems to square with this new rumour, which will presumably result in a standalone release. Best buy some new batteries for your flashlight, just in case.

Dragon Age 3 has been confirmed by a tweet from BioWare advertising for artists to work on the new instalment of the RPG series. “I’m looking for exceptional environment artists to join me at BioWare Edmonton, Canada to work on DragonAge3,” BioWare’s Senior Director of Creative Development Alistair McNally tweeted. The second game sets up a third game in the series.

A new teaser website, Carmageddon.com (registered to Square-Enix), has a countdown. The timer is clicking down to 10 am GMT on June 1. By my calculations, that’s about a week before E3. It’s been quite awhile since any activity in this franchise. For those of you too young to remember, the last Carmageddon was a racing game that encouraged you to be an aggressive driver. You could win a race by out-driving your opponents, wrecking them, or killing all the pedestrians on the map. By GTA standards, the violence was somewhat tame, but back then it still caused quite a stir (as did the merger of AOL and Time Warner in the very same year). Start revving your engines!